Audax buys Ready Mixed

11 November 2004

Southern Equipment, the 69-year-old United States Raleigh company in business as Ready Mixed Concrete, has been bought by a Boston investment firm, and a group of the companies’ executives, for $210 million. Audax Group, which has about $1 billion under management, partnered with Ready Mixed’s management team to buy the company. It is one of the largest providers of premixed concrete in North Carolina, South Carolina, and southern Virginia, said Jay Jester, Audax’s senior vice president for marketing and business development. The deal closed Monday, said Laney Orr, managing director of The Orr Group, the Winston-Salem investment banking firm that helped the former owners in the deal.

George Turner, who along with Temple Sloan took ownership of the company in 1976, offered Ready Mixed’s management team the chance to buy the business, Jester said. The management team was led by J.G. Loftin, Ready Mixed’s president. Loftin will take over as chief executive, replacing Turner, who will retire after about 40 years with the company, Jester said.

Ready Mixed mixes and delivers concrete to residential and commercial construction sites. It employs about 900 people in 70 cement-mixing locations in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia. Jester said Audax doesn’t plan to move Ready Mixed’s headquarters from its location near Wake Forest Road just north of the Beltline. Nor does it have plans to lay off any workers or change any operations. Jester said Ready Mixed has acquired about 20 companies and would grow by acquiring smaller firms and strengthening its foothold in its current markets.